Battle of Ap Bac
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Battle of Ap Bac | |||||||
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| Part of the Vietnam War | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam |
 Republic of Vietnam United States |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Hai Hoang | Bui Dinh Dam Huynh Van Cao John Paul Vann |
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| Strength | |||||||
| 350 | 1,400 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 18 dead 39 wounded |
83 dead 108 wounded |
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The Battle of Ap Bac was a small-scale battle early in the Vietnam War (1960–1975) which resulted in the first major combat victory by the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (aka the Việt Cộng) guerrillas against regular South Vietnamese forces. The battle took place on January 2, 1963, near the hamlet of Ap Bac, 65 kilometers (40 mi) southwest of Saigon in the Mekong Delta. Forces of the 7th Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), equipped with armored personnel carriers (APCs) and artillery and supported by American helicopters, faced off against an entrenched battalion of guerrillas.
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[edit] Background
The small scale combat, in what would develop into the Vietnam War, started in the late 1950s when the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem had instituted an anti-communist campaign aimed at rooting out "left behind" Viet Minh forces. At that time Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) was quite willing to await an election, promised under the Geneva Accord of 1954 to unite both Vietnams. It was also worried about inciting the United States into directly supporting the South, and had recommended a policy of avoiding combat at all costs. However, Diem's campaign was too successful to allow their forces to do nothing, and small scale actions broke out across the country. North Vietnam remained worried about U.S. involvement and refused any sort of military support, forcing the remaining Viet Minh to retreat into inaccessible areas in the hills and river estuaries. A stalemate of sorts followed, as the South's forces took so long to reach these areas that the guerrilla fighters were able to retreat with little difficulty.
American support had begun during the early 1960s with the arrival of large numbers of Special Forces troops to help in the field, and a joint U.S.-Vietnamese air force, although the later was essentially a U.S. force in all but name. The arrival of helicopters changed the nature of the battle considerably, allowing the ARVN forces to quickly fly to almost any point in the country, leaving little time for a retreat. Throughout 1962 the combined forces were increasingly effective in routing NLF forces. These tactics, combined with the use of armoured personnel carriers, took a heavy toll on NLF forces. The lightly-armed guerrillas had no weaponry capable of stopping the armored carriers and inevitably were forced to flee, taking heavy casualties.
The most successful South Vietnamese force had been the 7th Division, commanded by Colonel Huynh Van Cao. His American advisor was Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann, who orchestrated much of the unit's activity in concert with his planner, Captain Richard Ziegler. They had scored the biggest successes of the pacification campaign thus far, killing thousands of guerrillas and leaving others in their part of the country on the brink of collapse. ARVN officers, however, were chronically reluctant to take any casualties — several times, Cao's forces would be in excellent position to trap and wipe out whole battalions of guerrillas, but he would fail to close the trap on one pretext or another and allow remaining enemy forces to escape.
This behavior initially mystified Vann, who was attempting to build Cao into an aggressive commander. Unknown to Vann, Diem was adverse to military casualties and would reprimand or demote any officer who lost too many men, no matter how successful the operation. Diem believed that a 1960 coup attempt had been initiated because of casualties on offensive operations, and was more interested in using the military to protect his regime than take on the NLF. His solution was to fill ARVN with political cronies and friends like Cao, who had little military capacity but were unlikely to attempt another coup.
After one action that resulted in a small number of ARVN casualties, Cao was called to Saigon and was reprimanded by Diem. Upon his return, Vann and his group of advisers were forced from the joint planning sessions that had been so successful earlier, and action essentially wound down in their region. Cao used the excellent military intelligence network they had developed to find areas devoid of the NLF and planned operations only in those areas. In many other cases operations were executed on paper only, in order to be able to report an increasing tempo of operations that did not actually exist.
In 1962 Diem decided to split the command of the area in the south around Saigon into two, the former III Corps area being reduced in size to cover the area northeast of Saigon, and the newly-created IV Corps taking over the west and southwest. Cao earned a promotion to general and assumed command of the new IV Corps Tactical Zone, which included the area of operations of his 7th Division. Command of the 7th passed to Cao's chief of staff, Colonel Bui Dinh Dam. Dam expressed concerns about his own abilities in terms of military command when the promotion was first presented to him by Diem. Nevertheless he took Cao's former position and welcomed Vann's advisers back into the planning effort. Despite the change in leadership, the same problems continued to manifest themselves in 7th Division.
[edit] Prelude
Shortly after Christmas in 1962, intelligence located an NLF radio transmitter near Tan Thoi, 1.5 kilometers (1 mi) northwest of Ap Bac. It was believed that a single company, about 120 men, were in the area. Dam and Vann quickly planned an operation to destroy the guerrillas.
The plans called for a three-pronged pincer attack, carried out by 7th Division forces aided by regional units commanded by the province chief, Major Lam Quang Tho. One of the 7th's infantry battalions of 330 men would land just north of Tan Thoi in helicopters, two of Tho's battalions would approach Ap Bac in parallel columns from the south, and 13 M113 APCs carrying an infantry company would approach from the west. These forces would be supported by artillery, aerial bombardment, and two infantry companies held in reserve. The fields to the east and northeast of the village would be left open, to allow the guerrilla forces an escape route where they could be engaged by artillery and air support when they were forced to flee.
The NLF forces actually consisted of a full battalion of 320 men, assisted by 30 local guerrillas. The unit was well-equipped with captured U.S.-made weaponry. Most of the soldiers were armed with M-1 rifles. Additionally, each of the three companies in the battalion had a .30 caliber machine gun, and each of the battalion's dozen platoons had a pair of BAR light machine guns. A single 60mm mortar was also available. Nevertheless, the NLF troops were outnumbered more than ten to one by the 7th Division and its attached units.
Vann advised Dam to move as quickly as possible, but Dam delayed the operation until January 2 so that the American helicopter pilots could recover from New Year's Eve celebrations. The NLF, however, learned of the plans for an operation and began preparing defensive positions and entrenchments. They placed themselves in Tan Thoi to the north, southeast along a tree-lined creek to Ap Bac, and in short spurs running to the west and south of the hamlet. The NLF positions, concealed by trees and shrubs, made them difficult to see from both the ground and the air and afforded them a clear field of fire across the surrounding rice fields.
[edit] Battle
At 07:00 on January 2, 10 CH-21 Shawnee helicopters began airlifting the 7th Division infantry battalion to the area north of Tan Thoi. Because of the onset of heavy fog, the helicopters were only able to make one trip, dropping off one company. The lifts to transport the two remaining companies were delayed till 09:30. In the meantime the single company on location had to hold its position.
This delay left the two regional battalions marching up from the south to make first contact with the enemy. At 07:45, one battalion reached the west-east tree line south of Ap Bac. The guerrillas allowed them to get close before opening fire from the tree line and the creek running south to the right. One company commander was killed within a few seconds. The rest of the battalion sought shelter in a dike and spent two hours unsuccessfully trying to flank the guerrillas. Artillery support was misdirected because the fire control officer would not stand up to observe the fall of the rounds, and the shells landed on the far side of the enemy positions or in the open fields in front of them. At 10:00 the battalion commander was wounded, and any attempt at maneuvering stopped.
Major Tho failed to send the second battalion in aid of the first, although the battalion commander repeatedly asked for permission to start a flanking maneuver. The helicopters had finished landing the 7th Division battalion to the north. Finally, giving up on Tho, Vann requested that Dam fly the two reserve companies of the 7th into a rice field west of Ap Bac, north of the tree line and thus behind the enemy position. Unknown to Vann, who was under the impression the fire from the southern line was from the entire NLF force, this area was also defended by a company of NLF regulars.
The CH-21s approached from the north, escorted by 5 UH-1 Hueys. Knowing only the enemy positions in the southern tree line, the helicopters recklessly flew south directly over Tan Thoi and along the creek to Ap Bac, where they curved and landed only 200 yards west of the village, within range of light arms fire. All along this flight path the CH-21s received NLF fire, each chopper taking multiple hits. The Hueys began strafing runs along the enemy positions, but the trees overhead and the deep holes the guerrillas had dug shielded them from the attacks.
After unloading the infantry company, the helicopters took off, but one CH-21 was too damaged to get off the ground. Unwilling to leave the crew with the ARVN forces on the ground, the pilots sent another CH-21 down to rescue them. This helicopter was also damaged as soon as it landed. Finally one of the Hueys came in to pick up the two downed crews. While hovering, about to land, enemy fire struck its main rotor, and the helicopter flipped over and crashed. Further away, a third CH-21 had been damaged and forced to land. The infantry company had found itself under heavy fire and had taken cover in a shallow irrigation ditch. Unwilling to maneuver, the ARVN forces were pinned down by 10:30.
Vann then directed the APC squadron, several kilometers to the west of the village, to head to Ap Bac immediately to rescue the infantry company and helicopter crews. Steep-banked canals blocked the way and the APC commander, Captain Ly Tong Ba, felt that the guerrilla forces would be gone before he could get the M-113's over the canals. An argument broke out with Vann literally screaming into the radio in his plane, attempting to get Ba to start moving. Ba then delayed further while attempting to get the proper authority by radio, since he was under orders to not take commands directly from U.S. forces. In the meantime another CH-21 attempting a rescue managed to land near the downed choppers, but heavy fire caused it to take off immediately. Damaged, it barely flew out of the combat zone before having to land. The NLF had destroyed or disabled five helicopters, a new record for the war.
According to the account in A Bright Shining Lie, at this point the NLF forces were facing problems of their own. The battalion of the 7th to the north at Tan Thoi was putting pressure on the its forces there, although this was just an exchange of fire. The groups to the south of Ap Bac appeared to be on the point of breaking, having received constant air and artillery fire, albeit ineffective. A small force exposed near the southern tree line were able to pull out, but instead of moving to Ap Bac, ended up in Tan Thoi and refused to return south. But the respite caused by the delay in getting the APCs into action resulted in a slackening of fire, allowing ammunition to be passed up and the leaders to encourage their men. By the time the battle started again, some semblance of order had returned to their lines.
At 13:45 the APCs finally reached the rice field west of the village. Approaching the guerrillas in the tree line to the east, they had difficulty seeing the enemy positions because of the heavy foliage. The NLF troops poured heavy fire onto the vehicles, focusing on the machine gunner on top of each carrier. Two of the APCs were able to pull up beside the downed helicopters, but the driver of one was killed while driving with his head out of the hatch. In previous encounters NLF troops had broken at the sight of the APCs and had not fired back, so the drivers expected the same and left their machines open. While the recovery operations continued, Ba started forming up the remaining APCs for their traditional "charge" that had always broken the guerrillas in the past. At this point Ba was knocked unconscious inside his carrier, and the APCs refused to move while he recovered.
While the squadron stopped moving for the half hour until Ba recovered, the machine gunners on top continued to become casualties. Because the job typically went to the sergeants who were leaders in the infantry, the ability of the company to function was crippled. Finally Ba was able to organize the squadron and resumed the attack, but at a very slow pace because the drivers had to use their periscopes for driving, something they were not used to. Just when they were nearing their objective and it seemed the enemy might break and run, an NLF squad leader and his men jumped up and heaved grenades at the nearest APCs. Most of the attackers were killed, but the grenades hit their targets and added to the confusion. A final attack by the previously feared flamethrower-equipped APC failed because of a poor mixture of the fuel, which was not thick enough to reach the tree line from their position 100 meters away. U.S. advisers later said that buttoned up armored vehicles should have been able to run over the Viet Cong forward positions as they were protected against small arms fire. But at 14:30 the APCs discontinued the attack and withdrew, their morale broken.
[edit] Airborne
When it became apparent the enemy could not be overrun, reinforcement by an airborne battalion was requested. Colonel Vann and Colonel Daniel B. Porter objected to the corps commander decision to drop the South Vietnamese airborne battalion behind the mechanized squadron, rather than where it would have completed the encirclement. The 8th Airborne Battalion parachuted into the rice paddies at dusk, but were ready to attack until the next morning. Finally, at noon the force staged an attack that was really nothing more than walking through empty enemy positions, and swept through most of Ap Bac before being ordered to hold. [2]
[edit] Aftermath
The NLF suffered 18 killed and 39 wounded. Though most later withdrew from the hamlet during the night, they had turned back a larger force equipped with armour, helicopters and airbone troops. ARVN losses were 80 dead and 100 wounded, with three U.S. advisers killed in action and another eight wounded. A battlefield monument lists that nine helicopters and three M113 armored vehicles were destroyed.
Ap Bac represented a significant milestone in the war. The communist forces considered it to be their first big success, fully exploiting their victory for propaganda purposes. More importantly, they had successfully developed tactics to counter the technological advantage the U.S. provided the South Vietnamese. With the success of Ap Bac, the North immediately began planning for a full-scale war in the south.
The battle was also an indicator that the United States would eventually be compelled to escalate their presence and actively replace the insufficiently aggressive and poorly performing ARVN troops with their own ground combat forces. Advisors in the field suggested fortifying existing ARVN formations with U.S. military commanders, but to leaders in the U.S. this seemed like a new form of colonialism, and was anathema to stated U.S. policy. As the NLF grew increasingly powerful through 1963 and 1964, they eventually decided the only solution was the involvement of U.S. Army forces directly in the field. These plans were put into place starting in 1964, with the first full-sized combat units starting their missions in late 1965.
Largely as a result of the loss of 14 ARVN .50 cal gunners in this battle, M113s would later be modified with ACAV shields protecting the main machine gun and two additional gun positions. Thus equipped, the M113 would prove very effective as an armoured platform, and similarly upgraded M113s are being deployed to Iraq today.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Kelley, Michael P. (2002). Where We Were In Vietnam. Hellgate Press, pp. 5–16. ISBN 1-55571-625-3.
- ^ Vietnam Research
[edit] References
- Starry, Donn A. (1981). Armored Combat in Vietnam. Blandford Books. ISBN 0-7137-1166-3.
- Sheehan, Neil (1988). A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House.
- Karnow, Stanley (1983). Vietnam: A History. Viking Press.
[edit] Contemporary news reporting
- Sheehan, Neil. "Costly Viet-Nam Battle Angers U.S. Advisers", Washington Post/Times Herald, 1963-01-04, pp. A1.
- Halberstam, David. "Americans Salvage Helicopters Shot Down by Guerrillas in Vietnam", NY Times, 1963-01-05, pp. 2.
- "Viet Nam Force Refused To Attack, Advisers Say", Hartford Courant, 1963-01-07, pp. 1.
- Sheehan, Neil. "Vietnamese Ignored U.S. Battle Order", Washington Post/Times Herald, 1963-01-07, pp. A1.
- Halberstam, David. "Harkins Praises Vietnam Troops", NY Times, 1963-01-11, pp. 3.
- "Fighting Renewed Near Ap Bac", Washington Post/Times Herald, 1963-01-14, pp. A10.
